


Search Light Soul They Say

by GabrielsMyGuardian



Series: Darcy Manners [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Psychic kids, Witchcraft, Witches, magick, special children
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 04:08:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8606803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GabrielsMyGuardian/pseuds/GabrielsMyGuardian
Summary: What happens when Ellen breaks out the good stuff.





	

The lightbulbs spelling out "ROADHOUSE" over the awning emit a steady hum. They are a bright beacon for insects of all kinds under a starry Nebraska sky, a thin crescent moon grinning like the Cheshire Cat on the horizon.

"Dean, I'm not kidding. She knows her shit and can help. I trust her," Sam implores.

"I don't! We don't know her!"

"I know her as well as well as I know Ellen."

Dean is pacing along the driver's side of the Impala kicking up dirt in front of the Roadhouse.

"Ellen knew Dad," Dean shouts.

"And Darcy knows Bobby," Sam yells back. He's leaning on the roof of the car and rests his forehead on the cool metal. Ellen had broken out the whiskey earlier and they'd both been drinking all evening, mixing good whiskey with cheap beer. It had to be after midnight and Sam was feeling the effects of trying to keep up with Dean and Ash. Not to mention the cast on his right arm itches, the heavy night air is cold enough to make his lungs sting, and there's a rock in his left shoe irritating his heel.

"I don't know her at all. I've never even met her!"

Sam lifts his head and rests his chin on the back of his cast. 

"So now you don't trust me? Or Bobby?"

Dean growls and laces his fingers on top of his head as he continues to stalk around in the dark.

"Remember back at the hospital, when you were in the coma?"

"Not really, no."

Sam sighs, "I talked to you using that spirit board. It worked."

"And?"

"You ever used one before?"

"Was I ever a tween-age girl at a slumber party?"

"Well, the board we used wasn't exactly made by Hasbro."

"What are you talking about?"

"Remember the black marker on your wrists?"

"Some nurse did that."

"No," Sam said. "No, I did that. I had them too. Darcy drew them on me and I drew them on you."

"What the hell for?"

"Something about a closed circuit while we used the board. So it would be just you and me. And there was the pentagram on your chest. That was something else. Protection."

"Not the nurse?"

"You thought the nurse drew a pentagram on your chest?"

"It's kinda creepy that you did."

Sam shook his head.

"What's the point here, Sam?"

"Point is that Darcy made that board and taught me to use it. And she... she made me feel better, Dean."

Dean stops pacing and turns to face Sam, smiling.

"Made you feel better? Sammy, you sly devil you."

"Oh, come on. Get your mind out of Casa Erotica. You were dying. Dad was, I don't even know. I was a mess. And she showed up to help me because Bobby asked her to."

Dean harrumphs and starts pacing again.

Sam continues, "We may not know much about her, but she knows about us."

Dean narrows his eyes but stays silent.

"Bobby told her stuff. Not everything, but stuff like I was at Stanford. She knew Dad too. Didn't like him much."

Dean purses his lips and nods his head rapidly, rolling his eyes. 

"Okay, so she probably knew Dad. She knows Bobby. Why are you feeling like you need to talk to her or anybody else about this crap? It's family business."

"It's bigger than that and you know it. I trust her. I need someone to talk to, Dean."

"So talk to me!"

Sam starts laughing.

"Okay, fine. I'm not exactly Dr. Phil."

"Actually, that's not a bad comparison. You both talk too much."

"Hey!"

"Dean, I can't slow my mind down. I need to do something."

The screen door to the Roadhouse swings open and smacks against the wall causing both boys to jump.

"What the hell happened to you two?"

Ash is holding three open bottles of beer by the necks.

Dean stomps over and takes two of the bottles, handing one to Sam.

Ash raises his beer, "May you be in Heaven half an hour before the Devil knows you're dead."

Dean and Ash clink their bottles together and each takes a long pull. Sam raises his bottle to the toast but doesn't drink.

Ash shivers, "It's freezing out here." 

He turns and goes back into the Roadhouse. Dean follows, raising an eyebrow at Sam.

"Right behind you," Sam says, still leaning on the Impala.

~~~~~~

Darcy's eyes adjust to the darkness. The Gemini moon has started its ascent across the sky, but it's is only a sliver and is barely a wink of light. She knows her way in the shadows, moccasins sinking into the loamy soil as she skirts the flowerbed next to the house. Moonflower vines stretch up the trellis to the second story, standing sentinel, brilliant white trumpets swaying in the breeze that drifts in from the west. Just after sunset she had turned off the hot water sudsing up the sink of dishes and watched through the window as the flutes trembled and unfurled. Now, hours later, she stands beneath the blooms destined wither with the dawn. 

Half gallon Mason jars full of water from her well, six altogether, are lined up on a shelf with a guardrail that runs under the kitchen window. The moon's crescent does manage to illuminate the shiny pennies resting on the lid of each jar. Crickets chirp in chorus with frogs from the river running behind the property. Smoke from her neighbor's chimney wafts over the miles and mingles with the smoke from her own smoldering fireplace. It's actually a warm night for September in Wyoming at 48 degrees. There was a time Darcy would have goosebumps in these temperatures but the Southern California girl had long embraced the seasons of the high plains and this was still just sweater weather. 

Her thigh begins to vibrate as Robert Plant moans along with a guitar riff in her jeans pocket. Darcy fishes out her phone and flips it open.

"It's two in the morning so somebody better need bail money."

Sam chuckles.

"Hey, Darcy," Sam says, his voice breathy. He steps onto the wooden porch in front of the Roadhouse and closes the screen door Dean had left standing open.

"Sam, good to hear from you," Darcy answers. "How'er you doing?"

"Yeah, I don't really... Not so good I guess." Sam slurs his s's.

"Have you been drinking?"

"A couple of shots. With Dean and Ash. And Ellen. And Jo."

"You're at Harvelle's?"

"Yeah, Dean and I finished up a case in Guthrie, Oklahoma. Then Ellen called 'cause she found Ash's notes about me and the special children," Sam pauses. "You know Ellen?"

He plops himself down in one of the metal chairs in front of the Roadhouse window, legs splayed out in front of him, and unzips his jacket. Neon glares back at him the in the reflection from the Impala's windshield.

"Yeah, I've known Ellen for years. Jo and Ash too."

"Huh, we just met them a couple of months ago."

"Right around the time your dad died?"

"Yeah, there was this voice mail on Dad's phone. Ellen wanted to help Dad with the demon."

"So she knew," Darcy mumbles, plucking one of the moonflowers from its stem.

"What?" Sam asked.

"Tell me about special children. What are you talking about?" Darcy asks as she makes her way to the bench under the White Oak where she lays down, long legs draped over the end, and closes her eyes as Sam launches into his encounter with Max Miller and meeting Andy Gallagher with his Jedi mind tricks and evil twin, rambling on about the Yellow Eyed Demon and his plans.

"They're just like me. Or, or I'm like them. Andy wasn't a killer. But I already am. And Andy's smart and he could have anything he wants, but he's not greedy. He lives in his van. The demon's pushing us, breaking us. Turning us into killers if we aren't already. But I already am. And Dean's scared," Sam concludes. "So am I."

"Sam, you're not a killer..."

"But I already am."

"Sammy, what're you doing out here?" Dean hollers swinging the screen door wide, slamming it into the wall. "What the hell, man? Get in here."

Dean grabs Sam's jacket by the shoulder and tries drag him out of the chair. Unfortunately, Dean has had one beer too many to be able to manhandle a boneless Sam to his feet. Instead he only manages to drag the entire chair forward a few inches, lose his footing, and stumble off the porch landing on his ass in the dirt.

"Get off me!" Sam grunts.

Dean sits in front of Sam, laughing.

"Bitch."

"Jerk," Sam replies.

"What're you doing out here, Sammy?"

"Nothing."

Slowly bringing his brother into focus, Dean notices the phone in Sam's hand.

"Are you on the phone?"

"What? No?"

"Who are you drunk dialing, Sammy?"

"Nobody."

"So now I'm nobody?" Darcy chimed in.

"No, that's not what..."

"Is that a 900 number? Ooo, Sammy, what's her name?" Dean asks as he starts crawling toward the porch. Then he holds up his hand as if to keep Sam from speaking. "No, wait, wait, wait... Let me guess. Her name's Bambi. No, no, it's got to be Angel. Oh, wait, no, Ginger. It's Ginger, isn't it?"

"Dean, shut up!"

"Red heads," Dean says as he closes his eyes and sits back down, placing a hand over his heart, and sighs. "Holy crap, Tawny! Damn! Do you remember Tawny Kitaen doing the splits on the hood of that Jaguar XJS?" Dean lets out a small whimper.

Over the phone, Sam can hear Darcy laughing, calming his nerves and causing the corners of his mouth to curl up into a grin. 

Then Darcy starts to sing.

"Here I go again on my own..." Her voice is tinny through the tiny phone speaker. "Goin' down the only road I've ever known!"

Darcy jumps up on the bench and starts dancing, pulling her long brown hair loose from its ponytail. 

Sam brings the phone back to his face, "I'm so glad he can't hear you encouraging him."

"Like a drifter I was born to walk alone," Darcy belts out, stomping her right foot and shaking her hair into an '80s worthy head bangin' cascade.

"I want to be encouraged!" Dean says, managing to get to his feet and reach for the phone.

"We can watch her do those splits right now," Ash announces from the doorway. 

Both boys turn to look at Ash, Sam's eyes wide wondering how well Ash and Darcy knew each other.

"I have Whitesnake Trilogy on VHS."

"I'm in!" Dean says veering from Sam toward the door, following Ash.

"Oh, thank god," Sam mutters.

"And I've made up my mind," Darcy continues singing.

"Seriously?"

"I ain't wasting no more time."

"You know he thinks you're a phone sex operator?"

Darcy laughs and says, "That sounds more like a you problem than a me problem. Did Ash say VHS?"

Sam smirks, "You have hearing like a bat, you know that? Yeah, VHS. For a minute I thought he meant a tape of you."

"It could happen," Darcy shrugs as she settles down on the bench and crosses her legs under her, picks up the moonflower from where it landed during her dance attack and tucks it behind her right ear, an elbow resting on each knee.

"What?"

"Nothing," she sighs, content. "Back to you. What else?"

Sam picks at the paint peeling from the chair absently then lunges to his feet only to be instantly hobbled by the rock in his shoe. Pacing half on tip-toe he remembers that his arm itches and shrugs himself out of his rumpled jacket, like that might give him some relief.

"It's Dean. He's not right. And not just the drinking and porn obsession. I mean, I'm not okay either. But Dean, he's a mess."

Darcy takes a deep breath, grounding herself back into Sam's reality, pushing Dean's feigned levity to the back of her mind.

"Go on."

"Nothing's right. I'm not right. Dean thinks I'm a freak. Dean's not right. He's scary. Erratic. Wrenching at fixed experimental instincts. I know he's hurting. Dad's gone. There's this weird hole 'cause we don't know what really happened. If there was a..."

Sam's nose tingles, not ready to say he thinks his dad made a deal with the demon. 

"I don't know what to do," Sam sighs and sinks back into the chair. "Then we hooked up with Gordon. Dean was like, I don't know, looking up to him. Like he could replace Dad."

Darcy sits up straight. "Walker? Gordon Walker? Sam, you steer clear of him. Talk about not right."

"Yeah, I know."

"No, really, Sam. Wait. Wait a minute." Darcy takes in a breath and closes her eyes. "Did you two mutton-heads leave him tied to a chair somewhere in Montana?"

Sam chuckles, "How'd you know about that?"

"Fuck, Sam, he's pissed! And probably looking for you. You need to get out of the Roadhouse. Start chasing the double yellow line."

"You're probably right."

"Not probably. I am right. Get the hell out of there."

A rousing cheer rises from the small crowd left in the bar. Bottles and glasses clink. 

"Sam?"

She can hear him breathing.

"Neither one of you is sober enough to drive, are you?"

"Nuh-uh."

"First thing in the morning. You get moving."

"Yeah, okay."

"And Sam?"

"Yeah?"

"You two are going to be okay, you know that right?"

Sam sniffs.

"I don't know."

"I do."

Sam sighs, "Sorry I woke you up?"

"No, I was up."

"What're you doing?"

"Checking the holy water."

"Huh?"

"You've got to bless the water to make it holy. I've adapted the ritual from what Bobby taught me. Put a little more pagan into it like steeping the water with wild bear root and still keeping true-ish to my Catholic roots."

Sam scoots up in his chair.

"You're Catholic?"

"Recovering. I'm a witch, remember? My dad was pretty hardcore, though. Parochial school. Latin mass on Sunday. Grace before dinner. That stuff gets engrained."

"You wore a... a uniform? Like a plaid skirt uniform?"

"Yes, yes, I did. The skirt was red plaid, to be specific, and short. Really, really short. With white ankle socks that had lace cuffs and black patent leather pumps," 

Darcy pauses, then shouts, "Now quit being a perv! I am not the phone sex operator you're looking for."

Sam sits up straight with a jolt causing one of the chair legs to catch in the slats of the porch and pitch to one side. He pinwheels his arms and stomps a foot to keep from falling over.

"You good there?" Darcy asks.

"M-hum."

"The point was, I tried not to throw away the baby with the bathwater. I tend to work some of the old school Catholic mass with the older school pagan rituals. Once you start breaking them down, they're not that different. It's a little like making a good stew. A little of this, a pinch of that. Outcome's the same: give a blessing, repel a demon. In this case, I like to think mine's a little more potent. Like the difference plain salt and consecrated salt."

"Salt should be consecrated?"

"Uh, yeah. What do you do, pick up Morton's at the grocery store?"

"Usually we get it from Bobby. But, sometimes, yeah."

"And has Bobby ever handed you a carton of Morton's?"

"No."

"Plain old table salt or road salt will do for your run of the mill spirit, but the consecrated stuff is nice to have handy in case something really big and bad comes along. I even grind up some angelica root and mix it in, just to give it an extra punch. You boys have got something to learn about understanding what you're doing and how you're doing it. It's not just salt and burn. There's a point."

"I know, kill the evil thing in front of you."

Darcy sighs, "Sometimes. But there's more to it if you really want to be good at this job. Understand what you're hunting and why. Otherwise you're no better than your prey."

Sam falls silent again and thinks of Lenore, looking up at her and Eli while tied to the chair in the vampire nest, trying not to show them his fear.

Lenore had explained, "Survival. No deaths, no missing locals, no reason for people like you to come looking for people like us. We blend in," before taking him back to the motel unharmed.

He squeezes his eyes shut thinking about what Gordon had done to her and drains the beer, letting his head fall back, left hand dropping to lay the bottle on the porch.

Darcy continues, "Right now I'm pretty sure Gordon's hunting you boys. Go get your brother, have one more drink and get some sleep. You two need to haul ass outta there first thing."

Silence from Sam.

"Sam?"

Still nothing.

"Are you going to make me call Ellen?"

Sam emits a soft snore.

"Oh, for crying out..." 

Darcy ends the call and starts scrolling through her contacts, finally pressing the button to make a new call.

"Harvelle's."

"Hey, Jo. It's Darcy."

"Hi! How you doing?"

"I'm okay, thanks. Listen, I don't mean to be short, but I need to talk to your mom. And I think Sam Winchester's asleep on the porch. Will you go put him to bed? And get Dean in bed too?"

Jo giggles, thankful no one can see the color rising in her cheeks.

"That sounded all sort of wrong, but you know what I mean."

"Yeah, I'll get 'em. Here's mom," Jo says handing off the phone. "It's Darcy."

"Darcy?"

"Hey, Ellen. I've got favor to ask."


End file.
